Windows 10 activation question.

Larry

Well-Known Member
Sep 11, 2013
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I bought a new Lenovo ThinkPad tablet online earlier this week with Windows 10 Pro. For whatever reason, it must be the UK version since certain words were spelled WRONG because I'm a marrycan. I fixed everything to look correctly with changing locations and language packs, etc. I need to upgrade Windows since it's running a build 3+ years old. I can't keep my settings/programs when upgrading because of the region of Windows installed, but that's not a big deal.

My question is: Will I still have an activated version of Windows if I upgrade using an iso for en-US instead of the en-GB that's installed? My internet is garbage and it's not really possible to download another iso for a different region, or deal with hours of Windows updates when I can have 90% of the updates installed in the upgrade. I know the license is tied to the hardware, but wasn't sure if the region matters as long as it's the same version of Windows.
 
I don't know for sure if the license is tied to a specific region, but I don't believe so. I've installed Windows more times than I care and even so I can't remember exactly what the initial setup is like. It is slightly different from a generic ISO vs volume licensing though so I might be confusing the two. Either way, if you're looking at doing a clean install you can use the following site to select version 1903 as well as the correct language. After install it should automatically license the computer again.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

Edit: If you're creating the installer on a PC you can use the creation tool, but I've had more luck using Rufus instead of their tool.
 
I'm having all sorts of issues with this pos. I've ran windows update and downloaded 4gb+ on 3 different occasions and it gets to around 70% on preparing to install, goes to black screen, restarts with nothing done and wants to either do that again or wants to redownload the entire thing again.

I already had a USB drive made with rufus for the last major release, but I can't install it at thia time because this pos only has 1 USB port, the touch screen doesn't work, and the on screen keyboard doesn't pop up while installing wndows. I'll have go wait and get a dock for it before I can get the newest version installed.

I guess the license will work as long as you're installing the same language and the region doesn't matter from my findings so far.